Guitar Technique Tutorial: How to Perform String Skipping

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Have you ever been working on a guitar song and get to a part where your pick-hand stumbles a bit?

Frequently the cause of this pick-hand stumble is because your pick-hand has to jump over two or more strings to play the next note.  This is called string skipping.

In this tutorial we look at the guitar technique string skipping.  You’ll learn what it is, how to perform it and you’ll learn some guitar technique exercises to help you master it.

String skipping simply means that you are playing notes on one string and then skip over one or more strings to play the next note.  String skipping can be quite tricky at times.  So let’s look at some exercises you can work on to master it.

Be sure to practice each exercise slowly and make sure you produce clear notes.

Generally you will find alternate picking to be the most efficient way to play passages on non-consecutive strings.  But this rule is not set in stone.  Sometimes it will make more sense to use sweep picking.  Context should be the ultimate judge.

This exercise skips over one string and should be played ascending to the 12th fret and then backwards to the first fret.  The exercise is shown for strings 3—1, but should also be practiced with the following string groupings: 4—2; 5—3; and 6—4.

This exercise skips over 2 strings and like exercise 1 it should be played up to the 12th fret and then played backwards to the first fret.  The exercise is shown for strings 4—1, but should also be practiced with the following string groupings: 5—2, and 6—3.

The above two exercises just used the finger combination 1-2-3-4.  You can also do string skipping exercises with different finger combinations.  For example, 1-2-4-3, 1-3-2-4, 1-3-4-2, 1-4-2-3 and 1-4-3-2, etc. can all be used with string skipping.

To finish off this tutorial, I want to leave you with a tip.

When you encounter an area in a song where you frequently make errors,  you should aim to isolate and eliminate the trouble spot.

Let’s say that you are having trouble with the string skip from the fourth string to the first string in the example shown below.

What do you do?

You isolate and eliminate.

You look closer and discover the actual trouble spot in the passage:

So what you do is focus on just the trouble spot.  In other words, ignore everything else and just focus on the notes on the fourth string and the first string.

Practice these two notes:

Once you feel comfortable with this, expand out by adding in one note before the string skip.

Practice this until you’ve got it down. Then add in the next note after the string skip.

Now focus on this passage until you’ve got it down.

Next, simply repeat this process until you’ve added in the notes in the phrase before and after your string skip and bingo-you’ll have that string skip nailed down!

Are you interested in some powerful string skipping chop-building exercises?  Check out Mega Chops: Scale Mastery Beyond Hanon.

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Guitar Tutorial: The Forgotten Art of Warming Up the Right Way

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Would you ever even think of doing this?

You go the gym…

You put on your workout clothes…

You load up a barbell with a huge stack of weights and then…

You just start lifting.

That’s right.  No warm-up, or anything like that.  You just jump right in and go full-out.

You would never think of doing that would you?

Of course not.

You know that’s a recipe for disaster.

But let me ask you this: “Before you start playing guitar, do you warm-up?

Most guitar players don’t warm-up at all.  They simply grab their guitar and start to play.

Well, let me ask you this:

“Are you at your best on guitar when your fingers feel cold and stiff, or are you going to play at your best when your fingers are warm, loose and limber?”

The answer is obvious.

There are many effective things you can do to properly warm-up.  There are two broad categories of warm-up: off-instrument and on-instrument.  Today we will look at the off-instrument component.

A warm-up should contain a sufficient number of exercises that will warm your body’s core temperature and allow for mental readiness and focus on the task at hand.

A warm-up will increase deep muscle temperature, increase the viscosity of joint fluids and increase the range of motion in joints.

In other words, a warm-up gets you ready to play!

The idea behind the off-instrument warm-up is that you warm-up your body before you even pick up the guitar.  This means you would do some very light cardio and some very light stretching.  You would do this for 2-5 minutes and then start your true practice session with your on-instrument warm-up exercises.

The light cardio can be as simple as walking or marching in place, running in place,  or jumping jacks.  The idea here is to simply warm your whole body up.

For stretching, you should perform some light stretches that will get your whole body ready for practice.  Remember that your whole body is involved when you play guitar, not just your hands.

Obviously the focus is on the hands and forearms, but other body parts are used and some will need to remain stationary for extended periods of time.  This is not easy on the supporting body parts.  This is why you want to warm them all up.  For example, think of what your neck, shoulders, and back have to do when you practice.  So it just makes sense to perform some light stretches for your neck, shoulders, back, abs, arms, hands and legs.

Here you will find a PDF you can download with 12 stretching/warm-up body exercises  – PDF.  These stretches were created for the British Association for Performing Arts Medicine.

Before you begin the light cardio and light stretching, remember it’s always best to consult with your doctor before you start any physical fitness program regardless of how light it is-just to be safe.  Don’t take any chances.  Also, if you experience any pain it’s time to stop.

So there you go, you now know the basics of how to do a simple off-instrument warm-up.  Try it out at the beginning of your next practice session and I’m sure you will notice better results from your practice time.

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Guitar Technique Tutorial: How to Sweep Pick

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Alternate picking is an extremely efficient picking technique for melodic patterns that ascend or descend on a single string or a group of strings.  However, when you encounter a situation where there is only one note played per string you will find sweep picking to be much more effective.

An arpeggio is produced by playing the notes of a chord one-by-one.  Arpeggios are often played with just one note per string.  Instead of using alternate picking to play arpeggios, you will find sweep picking to be more efficient.

In sweep picking, you use as many continuous down or up-strokes as possible.  If the arpeggio changes direction, you simply reverse your picking.

In Sweep Picking Exercise #1 you will see an E major arpeggio.  In this fingering for the arpeggio, there is one note on each string.  The way to play this is to use one continuous down-stroke for strings 5-1 and then one continuous up-stroke for strings 2-4.

Sweep picking gets its name from the way it looks when performed—it looks like you are sweeping across the strings with your pick.

In some arpeggios you will need to play two notes on a string.  To do this use alternate picking on the strings that have two notes and sweep pick the rest.

In Sweep Picking Exercise #2 you will see that we have added in one additional chord tone for the arpeggio.  There are now two notes played on the first string.  This means you will need to use a combination of sweep picking and alternate picking.

For more powerful guitar technique building exercises check out my courses How I Got Killer Guitar Chops While I Was Still in High School: Confessions of a High School Shredder and Mega Chops: Scale Mastery Beyond Hanon.

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